The Prime Minister is betting on climate finance, the blue economy and a « architecture of trust » to attract big capital to Africa. In Nairobi, at the Africa Forward summit, Mauritius expressed its desire to seize the ball in the jump: after the speeches of Emmanuel Macron, Kenyan President William Ruto, UN Secretary General António Guterres and several African leaders advocating for a new global financial architecture more favorable to Africa, Navin Ramgoolam and his close collaborators now want to position Mauritius as the future capital of African financial de-risking.
The concept, omnipresent in the summit corridors, consists of reducing the risks to investments in Africa in order to finally attract large international capital to infrastructure, the blue economy, artificial intelligence, renewable energy or climate finance. And the amounts announced in Nairobi give the measure of ambitions.
According to the official documents of the summit, the cumulative commitments reach 23 billion euros, including 14 billion euros of French investments on the African continent. In detail, 4.3 billion euros concern the energy transition, 3.76 billion the digital economy and artificial intelligence, and 3.3 billion the blue economy.
Trust deficit
« The continent often offers the highest returns in the world, but continues to attract a marginal share of global financial flows because of regulatory, political or monetary risks, » Ramgoolam’s main collaborators explain to the express.
It is precisely in this space that Maurice now wants to position himself. The Prime Minister, accompanied by the Junior Minister of Finance, Dhaneshwar Damry, the Minister of Agribusiness, Fabrice David, the Ambassador of Mauritius to Paris, Joël Rault, and representatives of the Mauritian financial sector, has thus multiplied the meetings with development banks, institutional investors and African entrepreneurs. The objective: to make Mauritius a regional platform capable of structuring, securing and channeling investments in Africa.
The Mauritian bet is based on a simple idea: in a fragmented and unstable world, investors are primarily looking for stable, predictable jurisdictions capable of offering solid legal and financial guarantees. Mauritius intends to capitalize on its tax agreements, its international financial center, its expertise in arbitration and its proximity to Africa, India, the Gulf and Europe to become this trusted intermediary platform.
In financial jargon, de-risking involves public guarantees, climate insurance, loss-sharing funds or parametric mechanisms to automatically trigger compensation in the event of a climate disaster. These tools are becoming essential as the massive investments announced in Nairobi target capital-intensive sectors: ports, submarine cables, artificial intelligence, energy networks, green hydrogen or hospital infrastructure.
Among the flagship announcements are 2 billion euros from TotalEnergies in African renewable energies, 3 billion euros from Canal+ in the African audiovisual sector, nearly one billion euros for an Orange submarine cable connecting Europe to Africa, or 1.7 billion euros in port investments from CMA CGM. Behind this strategy, Mauritius sees a major economic opportunity: to attract to Port-Louis part of the financial flows that have so far largely bypassed the island.
The government hopes to boost fintech, legal services, cybersecurity, financial engineering and highly skilled jobs. Mauritius no longer wants to be just the place where African operations are structured; it wants to become the place where African finance is thought, designed and piloted for inclusive development.
source : all Africa
